The hippie trail
In the 1960s and 1970s there was a sudden growth of interest in the east ans its culture among young people from Europe and America.
The “hippie trail” to India consisted of mainly middle-class youth, who felt dissatisfied with the money-minded society in which thy had grown up and were looking for a simpler, more spirituality satisfying alternative in the east. they wanted to look at what eastern religions and philosophy could do for them. There was also a sudden explosion of the drugs culture in the 1960s and 70s. A trip to India promised easy availability of drugs. Pop stars fuelled the interest in India, with groups like The beatles going to India to meditate under the influence of an Indian holy man, the maharishi. Ashrams, holy places of refuge, sprang up in many western cities.
The reality was not always what the young people expected. They often didn´t find spirituality expanding and were powerfully affected by it but they also found it hard to survive such a harsh environment.
By the late 1970s things in Europe had changed. Jobs were becoming scarce and young people couldn´t spend a few years travelling and expect to come home to a job at the end of it all. Attitudes to the drug culture and the society were changing and the Hippies died a death, together with their flared jeans, flower power and trips to India.
